Title: Poet and Lauren's Trip to Oz
Author: Derien Nada
Rating: PG so far (and I think it will stay that way)
Pairing: Poet and Lauren (duh)
Warnings: Some femmeslash.  Probably you're more in danger of being bored than squicked.  
Disclaimers: Poet Norse Blue and Lauren Scavenger, being real people, belong 
only to themselves, and offered to let their names and vague descriptions be 
borrowed for this story.  Oz may belong to the estate of L. Frank Baum, but I had in 
mind Gregory Maguire's "Wicked" and Robert Heinlein's "Number of the Beast."  Arnold "Ace" 
Rimmer belongs to Grant Naylor.  I'm making no money from this (or anything else for that 
matter), so suing me would be a big waste of time.
Derivation/Reason for existing: Work in progress, written for the Red Dwarf Slash 
Society's "Slash the Slashers" challenge/game.  
Many Thanks To: My Muse and Beta, Eor.:)

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Part Two: Getting Found
(In which Poet and Lauren meet the standard little old woman.)

They stepped through the door of the shotgun shack into the first light of a very grey 
dawn.  The oil lamps on the train platform still glowed, paling in the growing light.  
A road - a dirt track, really - looped by the platform and disappeared into trees in 
either direction.  

" Hey, look." Poet nodded her head down the road.  "A native."  A figure had come around 
the bend of the road, but now stood there.  

Lauren, with Poet quickly following, set out toward the person, who swayed as if in 
indecision about whether to go back or come forward.  

In moments they could make out that it was an old woman in a full skirt with an apron. 
Now, seeing them more clearly, she decided to stand her ground.  She placed both fists on 
her hips and called out to them, "Are you witches, with a flying house?  Like that Dorothy 
girl?"

Poet murmured, "I guess we really are in Oz."

"So, what do we say?"

"Truth is always easier.  Less to remember."

"Okay."  Lauren pondered a spare moment, then called in response, "We're lost and need 
help."  

"Or then again you could avoid the issue."

"Yup."

The woman stepped forward again.  She gathered momentum.  "I have to douse the lanterns," 
she said, frowning as she brushed past them.  She seemed determined to be unimpressed by 
the wreckage of the shelter which had stood on top of the platform, but after she blew out 
the second lantern, she turned and spoke from the top of the steps.  "What have you done, 
here?  Did you fight?"  

"No.  We're friends," Poet responded.  "It was done by a tornado."  Then she responded in a 
rush, "Train.  We arrived by train.  And we saw the tornado drop the house.  And we stepped 
inside to check it out."

The woman nodded, slowly.  She stumped down the steps holding the rail.  "You're probably 
hungry.  Come along, I'll find you something to eat."  She still watched them from the 
corner of her eye as they walked.  "You'll pardon me, I hope.  It seemed quite likely you 
could be witches.  I've seen many strange things here at the train stop.  Your house is not 
the first thing to appear here, some of them quite odd.  Nor are you the first lost people 
left here by the train.  Of small unclaimed items I keep or sell what I find.  And I take 
it as my duty to help those passengers who've mistakenly been set off, here.  You may call 
me Lotta, as that is my given name.  My family name is Beenz."  She glowered at them.

"Lotta," Poet repeated, then put on the brakes before accidentally repeating the full name 
aloud.  She contemplated asking how long it had taken Ms. Beenz to get over being angry 
with her parents, then decided that, judging by her expression, she wasn't over it yet.  
"I'm Poet Norse Blue and this is Lauren Scavenger."

Lotta expression cleared to an almost-smile, and she nodded an approval at their names.  
"Now, where had you intended to go?"

Poet looked at Lauren.  

"Hurstbridge," Lauren replied.

"Ah.  Perhaps you were sold the wrong ticket, then?"

"No, I didn't buy a ticket.  I have a pass; I ride the same train nearly every day.  But it 
never came here, before."  

"Mm."  Lotta nodded sharply.  "Strange things happen around that platform.  Here we are."  
She opened a gate in a stone wall and they wound up a path between flowering bushes to a 
small cottage, which Poet exclaimed over the loveliness of.  This seemed to please 
Ms. Beenz.  Here and there among the bushes were objects, apparently serving as garden 
sculpture - Poet was sure she recognized a truck axle, sticking up at an angle out of the 
earth, but many other things were unplaceable.  

Inside the house the walls and shelves were crowded with knickknacks.  

"Have a seat, young ladies.  I'll get you some warm water and you can wash up while I lay 
out food."

Lauren nudged Poet and nodded at a corner of the wall where a palm pilot was nailed up 
next to a stone arrowhead.  Lotta took a kettle off of a stove which dominated the room, 
and bustled through a little door in the opposite corner, calling over her shoulder, "This 
way!"

The room she led them into was obviously all about washing, with a tub, a table with a 
basin and pitcher, and drying racks all around.  A small stove sat in the corner, though it 
had not yet been lit and the room was cold.  There was even a hand pump for water, with a 
basin next to it that even had a drain.

"This is very nice," Poet offered, and Lotta seemed flustered and pleased.  

"I know it's a bit excessive, completely unnecessary, I don't intend to be putting on airs, 
but where I do sometimes host stranger it seemed good to have some extra amenities."

"So there's people getting lost here all the time, then?"  Lauren asked.

"Why, yes - I had another only a year ago or so.  It's not quite enough to start a hotel, 
yet.  If they meant to get off here I send them to the Dancing Bear, in town.  Now, who 
wants to wash, and who will help me lay out breakfast?"

Poet opted for washing and Lauren accompanied Lotta to cut thick slices of bread and put 
them on top of the kitchen stove to toast, while Lotta brought a pot of stew and a large 
chunk of cheese up through a trapdoor.  The stewpot didn't seem cold enough to Lauren, but 
she tried to put that out of her mind.  

Poet returned and Lauren took her turn washing.  When they ate, the stew (composed of 
barley, mushrooms and turnip, among other things which she couldn't easily identify) 
seemed to sit well enough in her stomach, despite a slightly sour taste.  

As breakfast settled into their bellies, Lotta cleared the dishes.  "Look at your eyelids 
droop!  You poor dears, did you get any sleep at all on the train?"  

They both shook their heads, and she bustled them off to her own room.  "Tonight I'll ask 
you to sleep on the floor in the main room, but for now I've got a million things to do.  
It's market day tomorrow and I'll need to choose some things to take to town for sale.  So 
just have a lie-down in here for a while."

Her bedroom was obviously the place all her packrat tendencies came to roost, with all flat 
surfaces crowded and every space packed.  Poet wandered to the bureau and investigated the 
things on top of it.  She turned her head, tipped it this way and that, rubbed her neck.

Lauren watched her movements, the way even the dim grey light from the heavily-curtained 
window seemed to focus and glow on her skin and hair.  Then she realized that the edges of 
Poet's ears were quite red.  "Um.  I actually am really tired.  I'm getting very spacey," 
she offered, and abruptly sat on the bed.  She kicked off her shoes.  "It was late 
afternoon for me...." she trailed off, not sure how to word it.  'When I came here,' - she 
had been asleep when she somehow got to the train station, so she had no idea how it had 
happened, or how long it had actually taken.  "The last time I knew what time it was.  In 
Melbourne."

"It was the middle of the night for me."  Poet sat down next to her on the bed.  "And a 
rough trip here.  I'm really beat."  

Lauren grinned at her and wiggled further back on the bed, toward the wall, tugging Poet's 
arm.  "So snuggle up next to me, then, hun."

Poet rolled and leaned toward her on one arm.  "'Touch me not, for I am Zeralot's," she 
whispered.  

Lauren gave her a very direct gaze.  "If this is not all a dream I'm having, then this is a 
very unique situation, and I'd hope that Zeralot would understand.  If I ever see him 
again."